Every regulated sector has its own credential regime. The documents differ enormously — a CSCS card has nothing in common with an offshore survival certificate — but the shape of the problem is identical in all eight: a credential, a holder, an expiry date, and somebody who has to notice before it lapses.
The eight below are British because that is where this was written. The mechanic underneath them is not. Swap DBS for a US state licence, CSCS for a White Card, BOSIET for its equivalent off any coastline, and every sentence on this page still holds. If you recruit outside the UK, skip to the bottom.
Set the eight regimes side by side and the striking thing is how little the underlying mechanism varies. Almost every item on every list below is one of four things:
Issued once, valid for a fixed period, then worthless. An offshore survival certificate at four years, a Driver CPC card at five.
Not a date that runs out but a position that has to be re-checked. The DBS Update Service works this way, and treating it as an expiry date gets it wrong.
The number alone is not the qualification. A CSCS card has a type; a plant ticket is per machine. Two people can hold the same card and be cleared for different work.
Which means the hard part of compliance software is not knowing what a CSCS card is. It is having one mechanism that handles a renewal cycle, a re-check cadence and a category — and then filling it with the right content per sector. The regimes are content. The engine underneath them is the same.
The most written-about regime, and the one most agencies encounter first. DBS at the appropriate level, right to work, professional registration with the NMC or GMC, occupational health clearance, and mandatory training.
The trap: a registration number is recorded, not verified. Recording an NMC number and checking it against the live register are different activities, and most systems do only the first.
Enhanced DBS, barred list and prohibition checks, safeguarding training, qualification evidence, and right to work.
The trap: safeguarding training is usually annual, so it behaves like a subscription rather than a one-off clearance.
Distinct from education proper, and heavier. Enhanced DBS, Paediatric First Aid, safeguarding training, and a childcare qualification.
The trap: Paediatric First Aid runs on its own cycle and is frequently the item that lapses unnoticed, because it is the only one that does not arrive with the DBS.
As compliance-heavy as healthcare, and less well served. CSCS card with its number, card type and expiry. CPCS or NPORS plant tickets, held per machine category. SMSTS or SSSTS for supervisors. Asbestos awareness, working at height, first aid at work, right to work.
The trap: the category problem in its purest form. "Holds a CPCS ticket" is not an answer to "can this person operate a 360 excavator".
Arguably the strictest regime of the eight, and almost entirely unserved by mainstream recruitment software. BOSIET or FOET offshore survival on a four-year cycle. The OEUK medical — renamed from OGUK in 2022, though certificates in filing cabinets still say OGUK — on a two-year cycle. MIST, CA-EBS, ENG1 seafarer medical, STCW certificates.
The trap: helicopter transfer requires a recorded shoulder measurement. It is not a certificate, it has no expiry, and it will not fit any field designed for one — but without it somebody does not fly.
LGV and HGV licence categories, the Driver CPC qualification card on a five-year cycle, the tachograph card, ADR for dangerous goods, forklift certification, and DBS for particular contracts.
The trap: licence categories and the CPC card expire independently of each other and of the licence itself. Three clocks, one driver.
FCA registration, SMCR certification, fit-and-proper declarations, credit checks — and regulatory references, which carry a statutory six-year lookback and a prescribed shape.
The trap: that six-year reference regime is the one item across all eight sectors that a general-purpose references feature genuinely cannot absorb. It is a different thing wearing the same word.
BPSS, SC and DV clearance, each with a sponsor and an expiry, plus vendor certifications with their own renewal dates.
The trap: clearance is sponsored. It can lapse because a contract ended rather than because a date passed, which no expiry field will ever tell you.
Most systems give you one reference-number field. A card type, a machine category or a clearance level has nowhere to live, so it ends up in a note nobody queries.
A status confirmed on a cadence and a certificate with an end date look alike in a database and behave differently in practice. Modelling one as the other produces confident, wrong answers.
Compliance tracking that depends on somebody remembering to look is accurate right up until the fortnight when it matters. The check has to raise the work itself.
Recruitment is one of the few industries that exists in identical form in every country with an economy. Somebody has to find the people, verify they are who they claim to be, and put them in front of an employer who needs them. The verifying is where the local detail lives, and it is the only part of this page that changes when you cross a border.
Form I‑9 and E‑Verify in place of right to work. State nursing and teaching licences in place of NMC registration and DBS, each with its own state and expiry. OSHA cards where CSCS would sit. TWIC for port work. The category problem is worse here, not better — a licence is per state, so “is a registered nurse” is not an answer to “can work this shift in Ohio”.
The White Card for construction, the Working with Children Check per state or territory, AHPRA registration for clinical staff, and a police check with its own currency period. The same three shapes as the UK: a dated certificate, a status re-confirmed on a cadence, and a credential that carries a category.
Garda vetting, provincial college registration, national qualification recognition. Different issuers, different names, and the same three questions underneath: who holds it, what does it permit, and when does somebody have to look at it again.
None of the above is content we ship you. It is content you enter yourself, in a minute, without waiting on a release — because the document types in ATS Engine were never a fixed list. That is the whole reason the same product works in a country we have never sold into. Tell us what your clients ask for and we will help you build the starter set for it.
ATS Engine ships starter sets for all eight regimes above, so nobody begins from an empty screen. But the document types themselves are your organisation's data: you create them, name them, mark them mandatory, set how many are required, and set how often each must be re-checked. Adding "Paediatric First Aid" takes a minute and no involvement from us.
Anything falling due inside thirty days becomes a task on somebody's list automatically. Each client can carry its own list of required documents, and any client without one follows your standard set. Consent to share a candidate's file is recorded, can be withdrawn, and is checked at the moment they are submitted.
This page is a working reference, not legal advice. Credential regimes change, awarding bodies rename their certificates, and the requirements for any given placement depend on the client, the role and the setting. Always check the current position with the issuing body or your own compliance adviser. If you spot something here that has moved on, tell us at sales@ats-engine.com and we will correct it.